Moving from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0: What Are the Implications for Smart Logistics?

Background: Given the importance of human centricity, resilience, and sustainability, the emerging concept of Industry 5.0 has pushed forward the research frontier of the technology-focused Industry 4.0 to a smart and harmonious socio-economic transition driven by both humans and technologies, where the role of the human in the technological transformation is predominantly focused on. Several studies discuss the impacts of disruptive technologies on smart logistics operations in Industry 4.0. However, since Industry 5.0 is a new concept and still in its infancy, its implications for smart logistics have not been discussed. Methods: To fill this gap, this paper presents a comparative bibliometric analysis to show the connection and differences between Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 and their implications for smart logistics. A thorough content analysis is then given to illustrate the features of smart logistics in Industry 5.0 concerning four areas, namely intelligent automation, intelligent devices, intelligent systems, and intelligent materials. Results: The results show that, compared with Industry 4.0, the research of smart logistics in Industry 5.0 puts more focus on the interaction between humans and technology in the digital transition, with the increasing adoption of collaborative technologies, e.g., human-machine systems, collaborative robots, and human-robot collaboration. Conclusions: Finally, a research agenda is proposed for identifying future research directions of smart logistics in Industry 5.0.